


The one that the reaper missed

by caixa



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU - Historical, AU - war veterans, Aging Character, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gender Changes, Guilt, Injury, life story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 15:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12510560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caixa/pseuds/caixa
Summary: You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains on the ceiling.- Richard Siken





	The one that the reaper missed

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [麦穗遗落时](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399611) by [TripleEce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TripleEce/pseuds/TripleEce)



> This story is written for the football prompts monthly challenge of October 2017.  
> I used these prompts:
> 
> word prompt  
> photo prompt  
> trope prompt - partly; this story has its bits of fluff but is more on the angsty side.
> 
> I am not completely happy with the result because I ran badly out of time due to real life crashing down in several ways. This could have use another round of editing and possibly rewriting but it is what it is. I wanted to give one of these things a go.
> 
> I think the crops in the prompt photo was wheat.
> 
> The usual: I am not a native English writer and nobody beta read this.

 

It takes a moment for Gareth to realize where he is. The water stains on the ceiling have misguided him, again, he has a vague feeling that they have done so in more mornings than just this one this week, but recent days are so hard to recall and get mixed so easily that he can’t be sure.

No, this is not the military hospital. He doesn’t have the soft, gentle touch and humorous laughter of sister Lukita to look forward to, or the energetic, driven enthusiasm of doctor Cristiano Ronaldo, or the firm hand of the physiotherapist Jaime Benito to guide him to today’s exercises.

He doesn’t need them: his leg is stiff but it has supported him for seven decades now, and he knows it will support him when he eventually gets out of the bed.

If he only had something to get up for.

Gareth can only resort to having something to get up from, if it’s only getting up from under the ugly stained ceiling. The leak in the roof was repaired efficiently last winter, when the social worker appointed specifically to aid elderly war veterans in Cardiff put some speed to things and made it happen, but finishing the work with a paint job inside the house was forgotten somewhere along the way.

Gareth could have asked his daughters to have it arranged but… why bother. He doesn’t have too many years left, anyway, what does it matter? On good days he has dreamed of painting the ceiling himself. It wouldn’t be that hard, he has done his share of building and renovating when he was younger. Some paint, a brush and a roller with a broom handle, that’s all it would take.

Arms that can hold it up without shaking, those would be useful, too,

His aren’t. Useful.

Useless. Isn’t that the opposite of useful?

 

¤

 

The pain. Gareth’s leg hurt in a way he had never experienced before, couldn’t have imagined. He had blissfully lost his consciousness as an exploding round went off near him and tore a part of his calf apart.

He drifted back and forth between sleep, half-sleep and the real world, the pain a constant companion, sometimes muted to the background with the aid of morphine, sometimes like a screaming siren inside his skull, how could it even feel everywhere in his body when it was the leg that was wounded?

It was a miracle he hadn’t lost his foot, they said later. That there had been enough tissue left: enough bone that hadn’t been shattered, enough muscle, enough vein to keep it from being amputated from the knee or the ankle.

Some days they said it was a small miracle and Gareth thought that it was closer to the truth than calling it a plain out miracle. He didn’t want to be ungrateful because he did have a foot, but honestly the foot he had was a different foot than before: one that didn’t really work, didn’t bend and flex, didn’t make the moves necessary to take a step. It just… was there, a stiff support he could stand on, take odd rigid limps with. It was like having a wooden leg made of his own flesh and bone.

The battle had been heavy on his squad, that much trickled down to his ears as he laid in the hospital. Several had been killed, many wounded. The crew that survived had been so thin that they had been joined to another unit that also had lost men, and moved to God knows where.

_I should be with them_ , he thought on most days. Helping out, doing his share, carrying his part of the load to help his fellows. Being useful. Serving his country. Serving the greater good, defeating evil.

Now he only served himself, fought the battle against the foot that refused to work, with help of the staff in the hospital.

Doctor Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese spark of energy, always well-groomed, putting in unbelievable hours. Gareth’s first memory of the man was him tickling the sole of his foot with two wiggly fingers, not the end of the pencil like he always had seen the detached men of the medical profession in their white coats doing.

“Do you feel anything, huhm?” the doctor asked in his foreign accent.

Gareth did, and it was good news, a smile lit up the doctor’s handsome face in a way Gareth would have thought impossible in a place like this.

He was turned over to the Spanish physiotherapist Jaime Benito who was as patient and humorous as he was mercilessly demanding when it came to teaching Gareth’s foot to remember what it was to be a foot again.

“I can’t”, Gareth groaned on the bars, and Jaime always said “Nonsense. You can.”

The war had tossed people around the continent. Both the physiotherapist and the doctor had left their respective countries out of disagreement with the policies of the fascist dictators Franco and Salazar. Doctor Cristiano Ronaldo had come to Britain with his family, a beautiful young wife and four little children who occasionally visited the hospital. It was always a delight to see them: they burst in like rays of sunshine, brought with them laughter and babble that echoed on the stone walls like the voice of wind chimes.

Sister Modrić, on the other hand, had fled from Yugoslavia after  the Axis powers had invaded her country.

“So, you’re a Yugoslav, then”, Gareth said to make conversation on one of the first times the fair-haired, short nurse was on his bedside.

The nurse flashed him a smile but there was a steely spark in her eyes when she answered, “No. Croatian.”

 

Nights were the hardest. Of course they were: they were the darkest, they were the loneliest.

Gareth hated using the bedpan, which made the nights even more of a bummer; it was harder to subtly get someone to assist him to the toilet in the night. It felt like such a menial task to ask the night nurses to help him with.

“Do you need a hand?”

Gareth hadn’t heard sister Modrić approaching. He blushed, tangled in his thin hospital blanket, trying to push back the need to relieve himself.

He thought of denying it, the Croatian nurse would continue her nightly round. He would fish for the bedpan from under the hospital bed with the aid of his long arms.

He cleared his throat and spoke in a low voice. “Actually, I really wanted to go to the toilet. But I’ll manage.”

Sister Modrić smiled. “We can try”, she encouraged.

Gareth inched himself on a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Sister Modrić squatted lightly by his side, took his arm and wrapped it across her shoulder, tucking herself firmly to his side, under his arm.

Gareth looked at her questioningly, a hint of doubt and a dose of embarrassment in his eyes. Modrić nodded. “On the count of three”, she said.

Dragging and being dragged along the echoing corridor couldn’t really count as taking steps but they progressed. Sister Modrić was short, her shoulder fit snugly under Gareth’s arm, but she was surprisingly strong, not wavering under his weight, and Gareth dared to lean on her.

He only noticed how exhausted sister Modrić was when he was back in his bed. The nurse pulled a chair for herself, slumped down on it and sighed hard.

“I’m sorry”, Gareth said automatically. “I shouldn’t have worn you out.”

Sister Modrić flashed him a tired little smile. “Don’t be. That’s what I’m paid for. To help you. You’re doing your part.” She kept her voice low to avoid disturbing the other patients.

Gareth averted her eyes. “I’m not”, he muttered into the air. ”Other men are fighting for me.”

The nurse frowned at him. “This is your battle now. You are fighting it well. And you are the only on who can fight it. Nobody can walk on your legs except you.”

A bell rang somewhere along the corridor. Sister Modrić picked herself up with calm but efficient moves.

“You shouldn’t hesitate to call for help, either”, she said over her shoulder as a farewell.

 

Sister Modrić had a couple of days off after the night shift. Gareth noticed her absence: whenever he saw a glimpse of fair hair down the corridor, his senses heightened, but when he noticed it was another nurse his shoulders sunk down.

In the beginning of her next day shift she handed Gareth a football magazine.

“I’ve noticed you take your time reading the sports pages”, she said. “Thought you might like it.”

“I do!” enthusiasm and delight flashed through Gareth’s light blue eyes. “Thank you, sister Modrić.”

The nurse handed him another piece of paper, a leaflet about sport as a method of therapy. “I thought this could interest you, too”, she said. “And you should call me Lukita. I’d like it.”

Gareth liked it, too, more than he dared say.

 

There were harsh news, hopeful news. Eventually there were good news.

There were victory parades, news reels of returning soldiers reunited with their families, camera panning the cheering crowds, waving flags, arriving trains; close-ups of tears of joy running down cheeks.

Lukita encouraged Gareth to attend at least one of the events.

He squirmed, “It’s not my place”, he muttered. “I wasn’t there.”

Lukita glared at him, as much as her friendly face was capable of such an action, and shook her head, blonde waves flowing with the motion.

“You were wounded in battle. And we won the war. You are a hero. How can you not understand that? How can you still think anybody would expect anything more from you?”

 

¤

 

It’s a tragedy for a man of his generation to outlive his spouse. Women handle being widowed so much better than men. Maybe they are designed to be self-sufficient; maybe it’s just a result of the set of skills, both mental and practical, that they have had to learn along the course of their lives.

He thinks of the women. How they carried the home front, basically kept the country running, during the war, how they carried their families after it, settling for less money than men, stretching the penny to make ends meet. Going to work when the society called them for it, backing off to their kitchens when told that their men needed the jobs more.

Moving to foreign countries, learning a new language, a new culture. Carrying babies, passing the heritage of the two cultures to them as they grow up. Becoming backbones of their community, though seldom acknowledged as such.

Always ready to pick up and carry on, mentally, where their men gave up. Giving them the strength to go on, try once again after a moment of rest, ever so gently turning the men's heads just enough for them to see straight again.

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t miss Lukita.

 

¤

 

“We can make up a cute story about how you popped the question”, Lukita said, giggling. She leaned to Gareth’s arm, a bit tipsy after the dinner neither of them had wanted to end.

Gareth had asked her out the first time when he was released from the hospital to continue recuperation at home. He felt almost reluctant to leave and procrastinated with packing his belongings and changing to his own clothes until late afternoon when he had gathered enough courage to go and talk to her.

“I thought you’d never ask”, she smiled.

The hospital was changing, focusing on rehabilitation when the need for acute trauma treatment was fortunately declining. Doctor Ronaldo had left; to Gareth’s surprise, he had asked him to exchange addresses, and Gareth even got a letter from him months later. He was in Los Angeles, California, successfully practicing medicine; he had enclosed a picture of his family in a leafy garden, his wife’s tummy big and round with their fifth baby.

Gareth returned regularly for check-ups and recovery periods, happy to work with the familiar staff. He had been seeing Lukita more often than that, though; the dinner was not the first of their dates but it had certainly been the best so far.

Gareth had noticed how carefully, yet subtly, she had studied the menu to choose the most affordable courses. He did appreciate it, he had had to save money for the dinner date and he would starve for days to come after paying the bill, but on the other hand, he had his pride.

The pride led to ordering a bottle of champagne, and some cocktails after that. Lukita said no to none of those, and the night felt like fireworks and sparkle and sunshine bundled into one.

At one point Gareth tilted his head to the side, like he was listening to his own thoughts and smiled. “I’m having fun, actually”, he noted pointedly, like a hard thought-out conclusion from his ponderings.

Lukita burst out in laughter. “Well, it’s nice to hear that a dinner with me isn’t a drag”, she commented.

“Never”, Gareth hurried to say. “I just meant – I never thought I would feel happy again. But you make me”, he said.

“You deserve it”, Lukita said.

“I never thought I would deserve it, either.”

Lukita nodded slowly and looked him in the eye. “Seems you need a constant reminder that you do. Do you think we should get married?”

 

They did. For some years, they returned to Gareth’s family farm in South Wales. Gareth relished the sight of wheat fields getting their golden colour, but after the third harvest year he had to admit the line of work where he had to be on his feet for hours wore him out too much. Machines had been easier, you can press the clutch of the tractor with a stiff ankle as well as a fully functioning foot, but you needed more than that to run a farm.

They moved to Cardiff, Gareth to work in a brewery. Lukita returned to nursing as their daughters grew older; she was soon promoted to a position where she could work day shifts only, which was a relief to the everyday family life.

_You deserve so much more than this,_ Gareth thought often when he looked at her, changing from shoes to slippers, slouching down on an armchair for a moment of rest before preparing dinner, or heading out to a parents’ committee meeting, or a church meeting, or juggling all of these in the space of one weeknight. _You deserve gold and emeralds, all the beauty in the world._

Sometimes she smiled at him like she had heard his thoughts, like saying she already had all she wished for.

 

¤

 

Lunch makes Gareth tired and it frightens him; it reminds him of how Lukita started getting tired after heavy meals or walking up the stairs.

It’s not altogether bad to be frightened about it, he realizes as he lays down on the old mustard yellow bedspread, oblivious to the persistent water stains above him.

It means he doesn’t want to die, not just yet. A will to live is still in him.

A few years ago he came across the obituary of doctor Cristiano Ronaldo, remembered for not only building a chain of successful clinics across several states in the USA, but also for his wartime efforts with wounded British soldiers. Shortly after that he received the news of Jaime Benito passing on from the retired physiotherapist’s children in Spain.

So many have contributed hard work to the tapestry that is his life, to the fact that he can be here in his living, breathing body, on this bed, in this old house in Cardiff.

He needs to value it.

 

Paint. A brush, a roller and a broomstick, or one of those fancy telescopic poles.

_I will ask someone to drive me to the hardware store,_ he thinks before drifting off.

He dreams of wheat fields, as golden as his wife’s hair.

 

¤ fin ¤

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please tell me what you think, whether it's good or bad. Don't worry, you won't see my tears if you tell me this is horrible.
> 
> I'm pob-lwc-caixa on tumblr.


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